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invokes a familiar image, the larger-than-life evolution that once haven't. brown raised a bloody renegade war that started in the kansas territory and ended when he was captured after his famous raid

on harpers ferry. rely of the self-proclaimeddñ archive of the feet he blocked the path to harper's ferry, at the same time late evening and of the same day a tour 16th as brown and his band of men to the night of the rage. will live or written archives t write about sharply divided countries and the fiery and suggesting that the civil war. with every contemporary parallels midnight ride confirms that history does repeat itself, questions. please submit welcome back. [applause] [applause]@ñ >> thanks for that kind introduction and historical museum and watermark books. it is a to reckon with stock. on my way here, this is my second consecutive book with a strong kansas connection. i don't know what that means, but i seem to be drawn to your

state, or at least the darker chapters of your history. i am going to try and be reasonably brief tonight and leave lots of time for questions because this is the top like that tends to arouse strong feelings, and i would like to hear those that have some discussion. police don't be shy woodland done. maybe if we condemn the lights a little bit for the pictures. twenty-one eric? great. i've brought some pictures for regiment. i have to say first that i have a lot of fun writing midnight rising. and one reason for that is that i got to spend a lot of time in harpers ferry, which is really my kind of town. it is a very picturesque, history conscious place where strange things still happen.

on my first research trip there i was on my way to the archives. a park ranger told me there was the john brown. growing contest going up the street. not a fast-paced sector, this sport to was still, in trading. harper's ferry has also been really a tourist trap. there are still sites cause such as these john brown wax museum, which you can center-left. we can learn all kinds of history that never happened i also had fun because the protagonist of the story, john brown, such a vivid and compelling figure. i think quite different from the way most americans imagine him. in art and war he is often depicted as this wild night, wild hair fanatic, possibly insane, self-appointed messiah.

as he appears here in this famous mural at the kansas state house, rifle and one in the bible and the other. i learned this morning that one can is one the national chippy egyptian football of years ago that fans unfurled a banner with this image, except that in place with the bible he was clutching a trophy. >> basketball. >> basketball. excuse me. okay. no, my gosh. [laughter] don't run me out of the state. in the way to with these kinds of images, though, aren't really true to the man, beginning with that peered. for most of his life brown was a well brooms american striver and family man who favored a starched white shirt, leather krauss, dark suits, and made business trips to europe. did not come of that famous

scary beard of this until the last 18 months of his life and get a price of a set and went underground and needed to disguise his identity. brown also had an elite class of the american background. it ran like it comes into his life and crazy if a good way. his water nature hundred in connecticut's to farming stock. he moves as a boy to the ohio frontier where he is as kids in a large glass. for the first few decades its really something of a conformist adopting his coven is police, the trade of leather tanning, and he maries yen at his father's prompting to go home and that brown describes as

remarkably plain arabic investors and economical. their romantic. of some adults have a picture of her. this was pre photographic days. and this also tremendously self confidence and ambitious man. by dubois -- and in the entrepreneurial spirit of the age of jackson in the 1830's, he moved from farming and tanning in to land speculation, wanting to get rich, buying land and borrowing money in subdividing land and borrowing more and buying more until this property boom goes bust and the panic of 1837. brown is left buried in lawsuits

in debt and also -- ultimately is driven into bankruptcy by thousands of other americans in this era. this family that endures economic hardship also has repeated tragedy. brown's first wife dies young in childbirth, has his own mother had when he was only eight. and of those two children he buries nine of them before the age of ten. he battles back in his '40's from bankruptcy to become a leading wall merchants only to once again overreach and go bust once more. so this tremendously ambitious man enters his fifties, really as a failure, struggling to support this large family that has been through so much hardship and lost. just as an aside, when he arrived in kansas he had $0.60

in his pocket. this is a picture of his second wife and two of their young daughters. the deacon say the dollar terribly happy. but this is what i find so remarkable about brown. he has this unbending condition that sustains him through all of his joke-like trials. defended revolutionary war nation's founding destiny liberty and equality cannily be filled through the destruction of slavery and he believes it is god-given destined to do the job he clings to this mission for decades, quietly laying the groundwork until in the mid-50s this penniless unknown man explodes on to the national scene.

there's a lot that i find difficult about brown. almost in a have. i hope part of this -- the figuring how you feel about this complicated and sometimes confounding man who pulls you one way and the other. but i have to say now that i am also in my fifties, i am very struck by his resilience and his capacity to remake himself. what was then considered an advanced age. as the old man. his day despite all his worldly provides. important to the but your own . sorry. brown's militants to zuckerman of nowhere.

this is another aspect of the story that is often misunderstood, largely because of don with the wind for which i've taken this image. i think the americans still have this image of the priests of will or self as this doomed society, fuel and agrarian, in which plantations and slavery are destined to be swept away in a modernized industrial world. because we look back at the so-called old south through the prism of its loss in the civil war, it has this aura of underdog and lost cause. but to americans before the civil war who are obviously could not see the future, these appeared altogether different. the south did not seem an underdog region. in some ways it was the top dog. leaving the south held sway over the white house. the supreme court image of

congress and almost the entire era between the nation's standing in the civil war because kutcher was not wilting but booming. an engine of the national global economy. by far the country's largest export. slavery is also on the march. six states like texas and southern leaders and proslavery. rejuvenation to engage -- invade cuba and central america so that there would have more land. so you get the sense that even though the north has the majority of the nation's population and industry in rhode, it is the south that is the more brash and aggressive king. this is illustrated most graphically when massachusetts senator's take to the floor of the senate and get their --

gives a speech about kansas and slavery in its fenders. in reply to a south carolina carson, preston brooks approaches sumner, raises his bold top cain, and beats him almost to death on the floor of the senate in plain sight. for this act rex's is to lead lionized. this says most vocal of listen. so in diaries and letters and news reports, you get the sense that any slavery -- that mothers feel pushed around and billy by what they called asleep palace. we north democrats. they're called go faces because there were half one face and valuable in this hands of slaveholders. all three of the president's fit the description.

a political party it -- cartoon, stephen douglas appointing slavery down the throats of southern leaders. so potent. he is the rare northern this era -- noticed in this era who punches back hard. they believe in combating slavery through education and moral uplift. they believe there too docile and inferior. first full to end slavery is a state of war. he does so, of course, first year in kansas. when he arrives in 1855 to join his son who has already settled

upper hand. this is really the front line in the 1850's in this conflict. border ruffians, as they're called, coming across the border intimidating and sometimes killing north staffers who don't -- want kansas to be a free even pillage the free state capital of florence. the very same week that summer came on the floor of the said. and within two days of these two shocking events brown leads a party including fort hood sons in a night raid on the proslavery settlement this

slaughter them with broadswords. as his sons later explained, the immediate shock treatment, that for death. this shocking act also helped ignite a much more savage and wider conflict checks. brown is right in the middle of it. fighting forces, sometimes in past battles. most americans don't recognize that in 18565 years before the first bell you have mothers and seveners killing each other over slavery in the open field come back with muskets and cannons. this is a preview of the beginning of the civil war. but as always, brown is thinking big. he wants to take his crusade

into the hearts of the slave holdings of. he is trying to lead a guerrilla army through the non to harper's ferry virginia. he sees the massive armory and arsenal. free and armed slaves, continues self. rolling campaign of separation. during a uses to connect -- kendis name to rest monday it -- raise money and guns. he goes east from kansas and really wells the publicist who are intoxicated by the warrior arriving at the frontier. it is a look like the 1960's with of the new yorkers hosting black panthers and other radicals. brent is vetted in the lecture halls and salons of the northeast.

another tensing the lowest rates of brown as in the mail this man defining it in an unjust

devil and i cannot live with it er versatile of things about marriage. hope died as i was went on to my marriage bed. [laughter] >> sorry. these are very colorful figures.

one reason i have a good time with this book. that is some of the is going on behind, but brown also has many men who are eager to fight alongside he was not a lone gunman. the man he fought with him says are extraordinary individuals, farmers, factory workers, blacksmiths, mad pellets, teachers free blacks and fugitives place to share his belief that slavery must be taken on by force. there are also demand. misspeak gave. seek adventure, lose face. they spend a lot of time according women. they're risking their lives to free 4 million slaves to save the soul of the nation. he did not expect to find much

romance, but i was pleasantly surprised. there are also women. brown posing as a farmer and a entrepreneur. iran's a secluded log farmhouse 5 miles from harpers ferry worry begins gathering his weapons in the end. he has also joined by his teenage daughter and by his daughter-in-law. they're there to act really is cal flush, lookouts. if a passer-by or never passes the farmhouse, she agrees them in the yard or the porch and plays the part of innocent ordinary farm women were literal hi it -- guerrilla fighters and a lot of sight.

wonderful letters. the fireflies. the thrill and terror of being what she calls inaugural, concealing these young fighters, one of whom become surfers lover. i don't mean to suggest it is also -- sunland games. it is not. -democratic, tense. there is the constant risk of exposure to of particularly when they arrive in maryland. slave catchers are constantly on the lookout for fugitives. one of these men shown here, a virginia board slave who was

this error. oh, dear dangerfield, come this fall without fail, money or no money. if you do not get me, somebody else will. if i thought i should never see you again this earth with have no place for me. do i can for me. your affectionate wife. he simply goes from ohio to

brown's mountain hideout. the october he leads the team of his men across the potomac and in star chris bury sparging a savage street battle. the first of his men guns down and dangerfield, shot dead in the street. 50 miles short of his goal of rescuing harriet who is still a few months later. tests that it stuck inside the

bank, except in this case it is not a bank. it is a brick armory engine else , which, as you can see, the first belly on the left. they have to shoot or negotiate their way out. meanwhile, 19 u.s. marines are on their way to the scene interestingly under the command of robert lee and jeff stores, the future confederate general. this story is released a dress rehearsal.

the only member who has military training was a mexican war veteran who was court-martialed for what is called in the records in a drunken riot in mutiny. he listens to hard labor here in kansas, leavenworth, and quickly escapes and becomes a fierce abolitionist fighter and joins the band of brown. this refreshes warrior has a very gentle side, a tender so, and in the months leading up to the raid he falls desperately in love with a music teacher in skinny dunbar who is described as having great eyes with excuses' contours and territory of dark hair. that is about as easy as you could get.

anyway, all through the summer he is ready soulful letters declaring his love and paid her to return. so the bit that i am going to read, the intimacy of this event and the courtliness and brutality begins just after brown has an album of his men a a peace envoy. instead he seized by gunmen outside. under a flag of truce brown was angered and his lieutenant was an arranged.@í his court-martial had been triggered by the demeaning words from a superior officer which called for him to drop his gun.

now, in harpers ferry he wanted to take violence in retaliation. stevens was dissuaded by a prominent hostas in the engine house, superintendent of the armory. the first man awakened. imposition of an armed bands going to investigate. seized and held ever since. brown agreed sending his own son as a second body guard. they walked out of the armory gate and waved his white handkerchief and proceeded down the narrow streets. beside this land. as the men near it the blows for

private -- saloon's proprietor smashed and upper story when the so that he issued unobstructed. he and fellow gunman opened fire. the first bullet hit brown. a moment later stevens was struck. he finally collapsed. he called out for peacefully and she asian. i had been truly deceit. he had been dragged from his bed i wish to have remained at home. he retreated vomiting blood. they could do little over the bar area. brown regarded himself as a soldier. virginians prided themselves and their code of honor. his word was his bond. hostages pledged to return.

the firefight that held and stevens. the binding of the $0.0. took refuge in the nearby we germ cell. remained crumbled on the pavement. i had seen babies skill than it did not lose more blood. the stephens was not yet dead. he began to move and grown. he could not risk sending another man to a his lieutenant. he went into the streets and have returned to captivity. in a strange way this cruelty and kindness, this honor and courage, one of the most extraordinary.

stevens had already affected his unflinching defense of the armory. now lying half naked or a doctor just the wounds he became a figure of all. a perfect man in the parents. another defined him as the finest physical manner i've ever seen. he remained composed. he expressed no regret and declared himself fully prepared to die. one life for many, he said. he gazed at the picture he wore around his neck of his beloved jenny dunbar to whom he had written in his last letter, i hope i shall live to see the lovely face once more. i think will end it there. i will tell you the rest of the story, except that miraculously

stevens survived and does, indeed, live to see jimmy once more. of that know maybe we could bring up the lights so that i could see the audience and let you fire away with questions, comments to lobbies, whenever. i can pretty will see you. >> have to turn on the microphone. >> nothing. don't tell that to my wife. usually you have a long lag time between when the book is finished and it comes out, nine months to year. you have moved on to something else, but i only finished all of

the extra stuff in august. there really have not had time to even think about the next thing. given mike his proclivities i pay a finder's fee. come on. john brown. angry. someone must have a question. >> you would not know if which still has a sizable african-american population. i wonder what the response of african-americans was at the time and what sort of response you're getting to his story? >> yes. it is, again to one of these extraordinary things about brown he is a man who really lives his beliefs. he has black people, at times, living in his own.

he stays with black people as well. he stays with frederick douglass, the famous abolitionist. and over three weeks to become friends. he lives for a time in a pre black settlement in upstate new york. billy quite extraordinary in that sense. very uncommon in the state what do you think about amalgamation was last june. he says, well, not really for a call but i prefer that my daughter is married industrious black man rather than idle white. this is 1859. i will add that he also has great political ambitions. he writes are rewrites the american constitution at one point to give rights not only to blacks, but to women. he goes to canada to hold a

constitutional convention among blacks in canada, and many of them fugitive slaves. during this convention they nominate position for legislatures, president, then on lamplight man for president. so many of you who voted for obama and felt very progressive in doing so, john brown was set your hundred and 50 years late to the party. so he really is extraordinary in that way. blackmun fight alongside him and write about how there was no hint of prez's or condescension in this staff. he was really a man who was treating his beliefs. your second question was response going around talking. the only -- what's interesting, brown is a polarizing figure, obviously. he raises all of these very broad issues that are still with

us. raised a more religious fundamentalism, violence, terrorism, the right of individuals to, you know, oppose the government what is interesting is almost every ago i find it splits almost on the middle. i was in harpers ferry. i talked to a ranger who interprets. at the end of the program they always vote on, you know, was the right. ridiculous. and guess that is why have noticed the most. you will get a strong opinion on both sides.y? they shy audience. >> did he have any?

>> i don't ever see a sign of it in his letters. he believes. the thing that galvanizes in the most is passivity in what he sees in the face of what he sees this really is parlay his his belief, parlay his racial beliefs. but the it's also to metal. he just can't stand the sight of bullying that goes unanswered. but he believes really every taste of what he's doing is absolutely right and the communal, this is the mission he has been given by god i don't really sense out but the question to him slavery itself as a form of terrorism. to oppose the lessee has done is the right thing to do. he gets a concordances not only this slavery ascend the failure

to oppose it is a sense. many of them oppose slavery but don't want to do anything about it. your guilty if you're not doing some the about it. loaded to was not off -- i have to hang for that. grateful for his thyssens. one of the many ironies to the story, john brown faces himself as this man elections. the strong contrasts. and at harpers ferry he fails as a man of action dismally. but he ultimately tries the power of his words in court. so to you know, here again has his resilience and adaptability threat to the end. everything has turned on him. okay. this is my situation. i would play the hand that has

been dealt to me, and he goes to the gallows really almost as a christ figure to many in the north. yes. [inaudible question] >> the question is what led him to read the book. it really wasn't any one thing. i read a book about a dozen years ago, confederates in the attic that was mostly about so warm memory in the south. so i'll always been interested. again, it is a very spooky places that feels haunted. always chewing on him. to be honest, parlay the nagging of my wife, wife is a historical novelist. rota but called mars that was about imagining the father of lisa may alcott. her real father. as part of this should begin researching the secret six refer to.

she said to me, you know, you are a civil war buff. he to write about these people. the little-known story. tear up my back. etc researching. i find fascinating. is there enough profiles in courage. when the skin -- diluted to asylum. come to new york. so i thought these of the kind of characters that my wife loves to write about. but i am a little more drawn to action figures. i don't know why. this tender drew me back. and i guess all toe to toe also while lot has been written, the rate itself does not countenance full. this is a thrilling, sweaty tillotson's events, and i wanted to see if i could tell that in all its drama and also these

characters i have been talking about. >> talk about frederick douglass and heavy is changed. >> the questions about frederick douglass and how we changes tox support. he is threaded through the buck. it's almost a problem. he is such a great orator. when you go to a "him you want to use the whole speech. first he is one of our greatest orators. he is one of the first that brown discloses is planned to back in the 1840's. he really wants douglases support. release struck by this man and his conviction, but then he does that they kissed and is viable. they keep up the relationship.

keeps "courting him. he meets with douglas in a secret meeting. they wrapped it in his arm around to the census come with me the bees will swarm in the law has been to fellow wanted to hide them they're going to be caught inside. and that he, like other blacks recognize that this is a fugitive slave. his prospects would be particularly them. but is interesting, he really becomes one of brown's. he runs to canada, but he is at least honest about it. just by the harpers ferry contenders i am a coward. with later becomes is most eloquent defender.

he said, in essence, and in the book with one of his grace speeches. that communal, the world told the nation that were so numb we needed this kind of shark. this prospect of freedom was them until brown spread his arms and, you know, started this fight. since it is a striking revolution. ultimately comes to embrace him. [inaudible question] >> yes. harriet tubman, the questions about his relationship with harriet tubman. it is amazing. the cast of characters. you have this whole roster of future contenders will not talk

about lincoln, but. tubman. he meets with terror. this border area he is planning to attack. he meets with their command he thinks she has given him the proposal. and in my view he is a wishful thinker. he sees things that are not particularly there. so he has been very disappointed when she does not appear. the problem is we don't have much of her own riding on this. it is a little murky. could not be found, but right up until the end he is helping she is going to come help this whole kind of revolutionary state in the mountains of virginia. he wants to help them, to help him pull off the revolution.

[inaudible question] >> brown, the man? single. single most extraordinary thing. let's see. i have talked about it -- his resilience. thus, i should have, you know, should have an answer all teed up. i guess partly this is so little of a different subject. we think we have been through so much change. that is what is really incredible. farming with wooden plows. really a preindustrial world.

he is traveling the nation on trains, sending telegrams, having photographs. this is a future shock era. a highly industrialized turnaround -- town. so the kind of adaptations that he had to make. in some ways he is a very old-fashioned man. his religion and some of his beliefs, but very said. media in particular. he knew how to play the media. he led that train go former press very during the raids. it would spread the word. he knew what would happen. the drama gets a baltimore and their would-be correspondents. he gives as alarmist -- alarming messes tickets out. it's something that kept striking. all of these things happening. really extraordinary era in american history.

[inaudible question] >> it is astounding. daunting there is any one factor. ed think as i mentioned earlier, his father was also a very formidable figure. one of the things is interesting about his father is he is an early abolitionist, and also, strikingly tolerant of native americans in ohio. he is an interesting, why our light, very aggressive figure. that is one source of his antislavery beliefs. he writes in a letter to his wife that he saw slave boy beaten with a shovel when he was 12. this began his eternal war on

slavery. also is kelvin this belief. a belief system that was very almost fixated on sen reading out send, personal and collective, i think there are many factors. as i mentioned, he comes of age one when organized abolitionism is emerging, but also this is the era when wind, and becomes king. this era in which slavery is on the march. no one seems to be a will to push it back. so i think it is no one thing.

>> the question is about using the archive. most of the research for this book was an archives. i spent a lot of time in the historical society which has one of the best repositories of brown papers. love letters. digging for hidden treasure. going for these things they're wonderful. like to go to the places where history happened. you can learn a lot from the landscape, particularly in a place like harpers ferry. it is not changed that much. you can really grasp what happened. the armory engine house, the courthouse for it was tried. yes to my also went to the site of his massacre.

the set of his most famous battle in kansas, and also blackjack. and, you know, again, i think is very worthwhile to get a sense of -- i guess i was surprised not been for this part of the country, it is kind of a swampy, it does not look the way most people imagine kansas. it was very malarial. that is one theory of why people were called shoes. one theory, no one knows where this phrase came from. there would call these people tuque. in these river bottom lines, malaria was very right. , and not sure i believe the theory, but it is one of them. so, yes. i said. particularly still a place to keep place. an excellent museum.

the cabin of his half-sister brief spell of time. if you have not been there, i recommend. your lucky to be quite close. [inaudible question] [laughter] >> the question is whether my wife and i meet each other and make suggestions. yes, we do. we used to be journalists together. we would read stories together. but then she went to the dark side as setting making stuff up. [laughter] writing novels. i think i am of less use to her than she is to me. i love reading fiction, but i have no idea how to do it. nothing goes of the room without

having edited each other. that is not always easy. but we have very different styles, and that it is good in that sense. she is a writer's writer. she writes beautiful prose.$ affair reached -- i like dialogue and action. keep the pace going. i try and jazz as a bit. she's jealous me to describe the theory little more. tell us what this person looked like. i think we have a very productive relationship. sometimes it makes for the months to say at the dinner table when you have been sitting 10 feet apart all day and listening to each other's phone conversation. we have two sons. that keeps it interesting.

>> my mom wanted me to ask this question. she wants you to talk a little bit about his relationship with lincoln. the question is wellington. another kind of fascinating part of the story. brown had contempt for politicians. with the slave tower. i don't think he even knew who lincoln was of the stage. she never writes about lincoln specifically his rate occurs in the early periods of the 1860 presidential campaign. lincoln at this point is really a second tier candidate. really up well-known outside of

illinois. these figures often give his name wrong. he is kind of rick santorum and the republican race. second-tier. and as soon as this happens to move forces everyone to take positions on brown. lincoln uses brown as a boil. he condemns the rage. he says we admire the antislavery conviction, this is the wrong with doing. this is no other reason party is about. we're not about violence, not about selling the slavery in the south. he positions himself as the safely moderate choice. while his main competitors are regarded as more militant.

he is tarred by this episode. so i think it really attributes strongly to lincoln's nomination. and it also divides the democratic party, his opposition . i don't want to oversimplify. with the strong, we can't trust a northerner. they're all abolitionists. they regard him as christ. we needed to listen to a guarantees to protect slavery. this plus the democratic party. there is also another party that is born. lincoln is running in a broken field and is elected with less than 40 percent of the vote. so lincoln might well not have been elected had it not been for john brown's race.

condemned john brown. even once the war starts he is being urged to announce free slaves and he said this would be a john brown it raid on a massive scale, meaning it in a negative way. it would along the border states and was the wrong way to go. but then on light brown he rethink his position, depending on circumstances and ultimately fulfills his mission with the emancipation proclamation. one of his most famous speeches shortly before he is assassinated by john roach booth was that brown's hanging. so all the connection. o begin gives the famous second inaugural address in which he talks about every drop of blood will have to be repaid, you know, by blood drawn by the

sword. this is an eerie echo of brown. he goes to the gallows. this land will never be purged away but with blood. they start off in different positions and come together. is that a? we are all done. thank you. [applause] [applause] i don't know why and clapping. >> for more intermission visit the authors website. tony horwitz does com. we would like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback. twitter does com / book tv and snell in 2002 we sat down to discuss king of the mountain. he presents the findings of his